Love my wife, but not attracted to her.

[Afishwithabike]

Jeffwinger - Thanks for the explanation. I have very Westernized Indian and Desi friends. You and your wife seem like them - non-traditional.

 

It's interesting you mentioned she was hypothyroid before and isn't anymore based on test results. Sometimes people can be subclinically hypothyroid. That's what my doctor says. He says he prefers to treat the condition if the symptoms are present rather than relying on a test result. Sometimes we can be within the normal reference range, but still hypo for our particular bodies. Just a thought to consider...

 

Since you have so much hired help at home (am so envious! ), could you ask her to join you at the gym after work? Make it a couples activity. Go three days of the week as a start.

 

It seems to me the only way to get her to think about exercise is to incorporate it into something you do with her.

 

I like the email idea, but please keep it positive as the previous poster suggested. I think you need to have a section in the email that deals with something nice that person did for the other person that day or recently and how that made the recipient feel. Start off with the good before you get to the bad.

[JeffWinger9]

Jeffwinger - Thanks for the explanation. I have very Westernized Indian and Desi friends. You and your wife seem like them - non-traditional.

 

It's interesting you mentioned she was hypothyroid before and isn't anymore based on test results. Sometimes people can be subclinically hypothyroid. That's what my doctor says. He says he prefers to treat the condition if the symptoms are present rather than relying on a test result. Sometimes we can be within the normal reference range, but still hypo for our particular bodies. Just a thought to consider...

 

Since you have so much hired help at home (am so envious! ), could you ask her to join you at the gym after work? Make it a couples activity. Go three days of the week as a start.

 

It seems to me the only way to get her to think about exercise is to incorporate it into something you do with her.

 

I like the email idea, but please keep it positive as the previous poster suggested. I think you need to have a section in the email that deals with something nice that person did for the other person that day or recently and how that made the recipient feel. Start off with the good before you get to the bad.

 

I haven't been properly responding to some of the suggestions that have come up in this thread. She does take our son out for walks every evening. Puts the pram in the back of the car, drives him to the park, and lets the babysitter walk him :-)

 

The fifteen days that she did go to the gym was with me. I got her a personal trainer for three days a week. It went on for 4-5 weeks and then the habit was broken for some reason or the other.

 

I've been living this nightmare long enough that I've tried most such things already.

 

The only thing I haven't been able to do is a serious non-flared-up talk. And, I'm thinking it will be a lot less confrontational if we do it over email and leave the together-time for pleasant things. I know if we can keep the rest of the day pleasant, doing away with the negativity through email would work.

 

Then again, she could save those emails forever and they could come back to bite me in the butt later on! :-)

 

I've also been building up to get us both in the mood for some good sex for the last two-three days. Sex will ease the tension a bit and set the mood right to start a talk, I think.

 

I also think the suggestions that have come up make sense. The emails shouldn't be all negative. They could start out positively, somehow. Will work on that. Any more suggestions?

[Afishwithabike]

I was wondering if you'd sent the email. Any updates?

[Lexygirl]

She is a good mother. Somewhat lazy, but involved. She avoids the physical labour of being a mother, which is why we have all the excessive help. But, she is very involved with my son's upbringing. And, she's always watching over the help's shoulder to make sure everything's done right for him.

 

Her "internet research" is also mostly reading up about his upbringing, health, etc. You could say that he is her hobby and interest as of now. But, you see how she has made it into a zero-physical-activity hobby :-)

 

I have been thinking and the following came up as an idea. I would like as many opinions on this as I can get. I'm going to sit her down and tell her that as we both know, the relationship needs fixing and we need continuous dialogue to bring it back to its full glory. But, we're not going to sit and talk like in the past, so we don't bite each other's head off.

 

We're going to just send each other one email a day. The email will have four short sections:

1. One thing that puts me off about you.

2. What I think you can do about it.

3. What I think I can do to help you get rid of it.

4. Discussion about your last email to me. In this section we get to respond to the other person's note. We can agree or politely disagree with each other's point of view. But, we don't discuss that email after this.

 

I think that if we can shoot each other a short email daily where less is said and more is understood, we can get through most issues over ten days' time. And we can have a simple rule where if we can't think of anything else that puts us off on a given day, we must still send the email with 'One thing that turns me on about you.'

 

Now, I'm no expert on this. And, I don't want to single-handedly destroy my relationship by playing a silly game, which goes terribly bad. So, I need opinions, please.

 

Has anyone tried anything this silly in their relationships? What was the outcome? How do I make sure something like this doesn't spell disaster for our marriage?

 

Upon reading this... my feelings are... it's a bad idea.... for a few reasons.....

 

1. Things can get so totally misinterpreted through written form.... without body language and proper connotations....

 

2. You need to learn how to communicate together properly about serious stuff ..... as uncomfortable as this may be.

 

3. If you think that talking via email is gonna end there without any 'bad feelings' spilling over at night afterwards, you are mistaken....

 

Perhaps instead of emailing once a day, you could set aside a 'discussion time' once a week or something

 

Just my 2 cents.

Good luck and I give you alot of credit for trying to work things out with her !!